


Oil Paintings

by skellerbvvt



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Anonymity, Fluff, Multi, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-25
Updated: 2010-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-31 06:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skellerbvvt/pseuds/skellerbvvt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen goes to anonymous cuddle parties because she is often chilled. She makes friends, art metaphors, and a <i>special</i> friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oil Paintings

**Author's Note:**

> BETA [info]squashedrosie, though sections were added post-BETA, because I'm lame and forgot to save before sending, so please let none of my errors tarnish her sparkling reputation.
> 
>  **Pod!Fic** done by [](http://such-heights.livejournal.com/profile)[**such_heights**](http://such-heights.livejournal.com/) can be found [Here](http://www.mediafire.com/?zmmzmz2memz). It is delightful and grammatically correct.  
> 

She went because she needed to warm up—It was a thing about heat. She liked heat; she had a crap flat with a crap heating and she could hardly draw with big clunky gloves on, so she kept to her fingerless ones and wrapped herself in sweatshirts and heavy sweatpants and three pairs of socks. She would run her hands under the tap to warm them up—but her crap flat with crap heating had equally crap water heating. At the end of the day all she wanted was to go to her small, cramped bed with her electric blanket and her squishy pillows. She just liked being warm, was all. She had her friends, best mates from uni—but working at home, and working on projects that ate entire weeks of her life, made it hard to really meet with them much.

Gwen didn’t know entirely how she’d heard about the parties, a friend of a friend with a flyer, talk around the water cooler—though she worked from home, so that was unlikely—and she really wouldn’t have gone to anything advertised on the Internet. It didn’t really matter how she’d found out about them that first time—going in wary and tense, too tentative but do much besides crowd in a corner and press herself against a wall and watch. She wanted it—she wouldn’t have gone if she hadn’t wanted it, if she hadn’t looked at the press of blissfully tangled bodies and wanted to take part. And they were, too, they were just blissful bodies— all the faces blending into one another until it was just a big pile of arms and legs and torsos, quite murmuring voices piling upon each other like the heat and the…

It was something about the smell, she thought, the smell of all those people in one room together, the laundry soap of the pillows and blankets, wafts of sweat and musk and light perfume that teased around her. It took her three more parties before she let someone hold her, still creeping around the edges, but finding a pillow to curl around and a blanket to slip under and someone to snuggle with.

Cuddle Piles, they called them—no names, no nudity, no payment, just slip in, curl up and let that be it. They had sex parties, she knew that, somewhere there were anonymous sex parties where they had you slip on a mask, and tested you for STD’s and had you sign a release form and use protection and everything (or, well, the responsible ones did), but she didn’t _want_ sex, she just want to have some human contact once in awhile.

People came and went; sometimes the room would have seventy people, sometimes it was as low as fifteen, but the rules were the same—no names, no food, no sex. Just touching, just holding. You could leave or arrive whenever you felt, and a committee approved every party.

After twelve parties she began to notice some familiar faces. After fifteen-or-so parties she began to have favorite cuddle partners. Some people were stiff and awkward, others just didn’t quite know what to do with their hands or their heads, some people touched too much, others felt reluctant to approach at all. As they became more familiar with her, and her them, that settled out a bit. She didn’t know who they were, obviously, and if she saw one of them out and about they would both probably slide by one another without acknowledgement.

So she had her favorites in the mix of people she generally approached, happy for their warmth in spirit and temperature. Ears, for example, was especially snuggly, but in a way that didn’t set her teeth on edge. He just honestly seemed to always want a hug, want to get a hug, and give one back. He would nuzzle the back of her neck playfully; he always remembered to brush his teeth and wash before coming to the party—it was hard to get into the groove of a cuddle when someone smelled off. Ears always smelled nice, and he always felt…Gwen couldn’t put it into words, but she’d draft abstract float-y doodles when she got home, draping them in big swaths of color. She was always relaxed after a night with him, dozens of other bodies around them, but he’d tuck her into his limbs, smooth a hand over her stomach and somewhere under all those gangly limbs, she’d warm up.

Ears’ boyfriend, Mr. Hero (Gwen didn’t know if they were dating, obviously), tended to be there too, wrapped comfortably around Ears like he wouldn’t rather be anywhere else in the world. Sometimes Gwen would come in after a long day seated at her drafting board, or bent over her tablet staring at filters and saturation and curves and getting such terrible eyes strain, and she would see them wrapped together and she’d just feel _better_.

There would be other people encroaching on their nestled privacy: hands on their ankles, bodies to either side, but sometimes they just looked like…like they could be a spotlight painting in a gallery, and people would just keep coming back to them- them in oak framing, them on proper canvas stretched over wood. They were the painting that would make people forget every single other piece in the whole building. Sometimes Mr. Hero would let Ears curl around him, and if she were near them he would put a big, rough hand on her hip and rest his chin on the top of her head and she would feel outlined. She didn’t like drawing with outlines, normally, they felt constrictive and false, but sometimes it was comforting to not shade from the inside out and have to find out where she was in the vastly distracting landscape of her projects. Sometimes it was nice to return to the crayon and marker drawings of her youth, where everything could be accomplished with lines.

Her favorite, though, the person she looks forward most to being there, is a woman she dubbed Lady Amazing, because she enters the room like a royalty or a superhero. Lady Amazing just…removed all residual awkwardness by being decisively self-assured. She would gently guide Gwen’s limbs for the most comfort, so neither of them jerked around or elbowed each other in the ribs. She always wore silks, or velvets and liked stroking through Gwen’s hair or kneading the back of her neck. Gwen likes her because she made Gwen feel…done. That brief moment when she stepped back from a project and—for however long it lasted—was utterly satisfied with it. The notion in real life never lasted longer than it took to save a file and back it up, but here she could bask in it, as Lady Amazing rubbed the tension out of her neck and drenched her in insistent, quiet warmth.

She thinks Lady Amazing likes her too, since she often seems to have saved a little spot for Gwen, and starts showing up more on Gwen’s usual days, giving her a pleased smile when she shows up, as if to award her for coming yet again. Gwen always smiles back and finds her way towards her.

Tonight she spent all night up struggling with her latest project, all post-production, and she wants to scratch out her own eyes instead of play with lettering another second longer, and she’s cold, and shaking with caffeine, and she just wants to _sleep_ , but she just couldn’t be in her flat anymore. So she’d checked the night’s location and here she is. The Boys are coalesced together in the corner and talking to one another, but Lady Amazing is lounging atop a swarm of pillows like a throne, or a stage, gazing at Gwen. No one else is near her. Thursdays are generally pretty slow. Gwen hurries over—then thinks that might have looked over-eager and stupid, but it’s too late as Lady Amazing just takes her (cold, cold) hand and pulls Gwen down into the soft groove of the pillows.

Gwen goes slowly, resting her knee on a thick cushion next to Lady Amazing, watching as she whispers warm air over Gwen’s fingers. It feels nice, to have her hand in the careful clasp of someone else’s. Gwen rests on one elbow as Lady Amazing moves Gwen hand from her chest down to her side under her purple silk shirt. Lady Amazing hissed slightly at the chill of Gwen’s fingers on her ribs, but didn’t let her pull away out of politeness. Gwen lies down fully on her side and Lady Amazing tugs one of the warm, purple fleece blankets this location is littered with. Gwen settles in and already she feels cradled in heat and wants nothing more than to close her eyes and drift off

“You’re always so cold,” Lady Amazing whispers wrapping her legs around Gwen’s, pulling them close until they were ball of yarn as wrapped by Gwen’s three-year-old cousin. “Come here,” She orders and Gwen can’t get any closer than she is—she doesn’t think—but somehow they managed to be nestled together and Gwen is aware only of the pulse in Lady Amazing’s throat and the feeling her skin under Gwen’s hands. They’re still only snuggling, and that is fine—perfect, exactly what Gwen needs, what she came here for.

Then Lady Amazing’s thumb began idly stroking the soft give behind Gwen’s ear, her fingers tangling in Gwen’s hair. “Look at you, you’re exhausted.”

“Long day,” Gwen murmurs, nuzzling into Lady Amazing’s arm as she began…not carding exactly, the curls of her hair were too tight to just run through anyone’s fingers, but tugging and trailing her nails over Gwen’s scalp. Gwen looks up. Lady Amazing’s hair would slide like watercolors, sink into her fingers and spread, all soft edges and low saturation. Gwen reaches up and follows the line of a gentle curl.

“Catch a nap then. You need to be up for anything?”

Gwen shakes her head and Lady Amazing (who is amazing) shifts to pull a blanket over the both of them and Gwen ducks her head and sighs into sleep, briefly wondering if she…but it is too easy; too warm to stay awake or worry, and Lady Amazing (amazingly _comfortable_ ) is rubbing her back, and murmuring that she’d be fine.

She wakes up with a gentle shake on the shoulder. She murmured, too comfortable to wake up fully, and a voice is muttering to someone else above her, and she burrows deeper into her sleep and someone laughs, shaking her again. “Come on then, up you get. Party’s over.”

“You sure you got her?”

“Of course,” Lady Amazing says, “I’ll make sure she gets home safe.”

Gwen blinks up and scans around the room. It has pretty much emptied of people; Ears and Mr. Hero are just leaving, having been the ones talking to Lady Amazing. Ears gives her a friendly wave as Mr. Hero grabs his wrist and tugs him out. Ah, so they did know each other.

“Feel better?” Lady Amazing says, lifting up on an elbow. She smooths back Gwen’s hair and gives her a smile. “Need me to drive you home?”

“No I’ve got…” She gestures then looks at her watch and sits up, realizing that the buses would have changed their schedule by now and she isn’t entirely certain of how they run this late at night.

“Well I’ve got a car, if you’d like,” Lady Amazing offers, sitting up behind her, “I can take you somewhere public if it’d make you more comfortable?”

“No, I…” Gwen shifted, “uh…where are the hosts?”

Lady Amazing gestures to herself, “present and accounted for.”

“Oh,” Gwen looks around, “Is this your… um…can I ask that?”

“Is this my flat? Yes. The living room, actually.”

“Oh,” Gwen settles into Lady Amazing arms, who in turn makes a pleased sound, wrapping her arms around Gwen’s waist and settling her chin on her shoulder.

“I call you the Artist in my head, you know,” Lady Amazing says. “No, don’t correct me just yet. The mystery of it is intriguing, don’t you think?”

“Why The Artist?”

“Your hands are often stained with graphite, and sometimes you have paint right…” she lifts Gwen’s hair and rubs her thumb over one curl. “Or ink, here,” she taps the line of Gwen’s jaw, stroking her finger up to the soft give right behind Gwen’s ear.

“Oh I…you noticed?” She tucks the errant curl behind her tingling ear.

“Well it’s hard not to notice, when it’s right in front of my eyes for a few hours, isn’t it?” Lady Amazing teased lightly. “I’m hardly a Sherlock Holmes.”

“I call you Lady Amazing,” Gwen blurts. “Um…because you’re sort of a superhero? And sort of…got these ways of entering a room like you own it? Which I suppose you do, in this case. I don’t know, but you always seemed like you are going to save the world?”

Lady Amazing laughs delightedly and Gwen feels like someone was shading her from the inside out with warm sunrise colors, she feels like she cold float right off the page.

“And you like to be mysterious too,” Gwen added.

“I don’t have a mask.”

“Maybe you wear glasses in the daytime,” Gwen says and Lady Amazing leans to the side and slips a finger under Gwen’s chin. She tilts Gwen’s head until they can best see one another, and Gwen is once again reminded that Lady Amazing is sort of too glamorous and gorgeous to actually exist.

“I really want to kiss you, but I won’t if you don’t want me to,” She says, which takes Gwen several moments to process because…well…Lazy Amazing is _sort of too pretty to actually exist_ , and while Gwen has had some lovely girlfriends in the past—and is confident enough that she herself is rather pretty—she is fairly sure someone like Lady Amazing might be a wee bit out of her league. Lazy Amazing isn’t looking at Gwen like that though, like she thinks Gwen is a _bit_ pretty.

“May I?” Lady Amazing asks. Lady Amazing is looking at Gwen like…like…well, for one like she would really rather like to kiss Gwen. However, she was also looking like…well, Gwen had never much dealt with three-dimensional media—she liked to layer paints and that was the extent of her exploration into actualized depth— but she had known a fair few sculptures in her time, and Lady Amazing is looking at Gwen like she could sink her fingers in and capture something pure if she could just turn Gwen at the right angle.

“How do you know if I…I mean if…um,” Gwen has never felt so flustered in her life, but likely because a beautiful nameless woman had never asked to kiss her before. It was rather a unique event.

“I don’t,” she shrugged, “I just sort of hoped. If not I can get you home, or-“

Gwen reaches forward and kisses her, because she can. Lady Amazing makes a surprised noise complete with hands flying wide, but she reached for Gwen quickly enough. One hand settles on Gwen’s cheek, the other on her shoulder, quiet, comfortable and Gwen turns for a better angle, her own hands fluttering before resting on the safely of Lady Amazing’s knee. It is a soft kiss, one that is all lips and gentle, gentle hands and breath fluttering just in her throat.

“That was…” Gwen begins, pulling just far enough away to talk. The Lady cocks her head and gently smoothes Gwen’s hair back. “That was nice.”

“May I kiss you again?”

“You’re awfully polite,” Gwen replies, “and I kissed _you_ , to be fair. That first time. So you can’t really kiss me again, since I kissed you. You can kiss me for a _first_ time, if you’d-”

The other woman smiles with a sense of utter _glee_ and then tugs Gwen close and kisses her properly—not sloppily. Lady Amazing probably does nothing sloppily, she probably goes through life as she kisses: strong and assured—like a superhero should be. Her arms are tight around Gwen’s back, hair free and tumbling around them. Gwen laughs into the kiss, basking in the tingling heat of such simple, perfect contact. She presses her host down into the cushions and pillows, slotting their legs together, because she very suddenly _needs_ , a feeling that tenses and coils down her throat as she flicks her tongue against Lady Amazing’s lip. Lady Amazing pulls her closer, so Gwen is left supporting her weight on her forearms and Lady Amazing curls up into her—her kiss going back to shy and exploratory then, as if she is copying in feeling beating in Gwen’s chest, starts kissing back with mindlessly passionate fervor. Neither of them care for technique at the moment just pressing closer, teeth clashing slightly, and there are a few awkward moment with their tongues, but it’s fine, it’s _brilliant_.

There was something unfoundedly delectable about kissing a woman she doesn’t know the name of. It is like finding doodles in the back of rented textbooks; Gwen is awfully fond of doodles—they were a pure form of expression. No one else was going to see them; they were just there for the sake of existing.

“May I-” Lady Amazing begins to ask, giving no gesture of what she means, but Gwen doesn’t care, just wants more of it, whatever it is, whatever they are doing. It was irresponsible, but sincere, and Gwen valued the second a bit more highly.

“Yes, God, yes, just do it—” Gwen says and she feel a hand slip oh-so carefully under her shirt. Lady Amazing seems utterly fascinated by the texture of Gwen’s skin, happily rubbing at the skin of her stomach and sides with bare brushes of her fingers. It was all the sweetness of her first snog with none of the uncomfortable feeling of something not being right—namely that she had been in a tree with a boy and while he’d been a very _nice_ boy, he had, nonetheless, not been what Gwen wanted. Wants.

“Ticklish?” Lazy Amazing asks, running calloused—from what Gwen had absolutely no idea, _sword fighting_ maybe.— fingers down her ribs and Gwen hitches a breath, squeezing her fingers tight. Lady lets out a laugh in her stead, “little bit?”

“No,” Gwen said, then writhes, because she _was_ and is utter rubbish at hiding it, “maybe.”

“Mmm,” Lady Amazing nuzzles at Gwen’s neck. “Well, we don’t want any flailing limbs going about. Might bruise a bit,” her fingers leave the dangerous territory of Gwen’s ribs and settle more firmly along her back. “You sure you want this?”

Gwen decides that there might be such a thing as being too polite, and begins kissing down the pale stretch of her companion’s throat, necking with abandon that she hasn’t managed since an inadvisable drunken teenage snog that happened ages ago. Lady hisses her enjoyment as Gwen bites maybe a smidgeon too hard.

“Oh you are lovely,” Lazy Amazing rolls them over and settles them on their sides. Gwen slides a leg up between Lady Amazing thighs, moving it slowly in case it isn’t…but it is, given the way the Lady settles around it, lips sliding over Gwen’s, hand petting her hip and precious little sounds purring out as she rocks down gently over Gwen’s thigh, coaxing out sounds from Gwen with a not-so-gentle tug of teeth. It is easy to roll in the softness of so many cushions; it is easy to relax into the euphoria of so much warmth. It is as easy as falling to sleep had been.

“I really don’t come here looking for hook-ups,” Gwen adds, looking up, because she is not that kind of girl…er, well, _this_ kind of girl, not that there is anything _wrong_ , exactly with that, but…um. The other woman cocks her head, studying Gwen.

“I didn’t think you did. You come here for the same reason anyone does. Sometimes you just need to be held.”

“Is that why you…?” Gwen looks up, feeling somewhere between shy and Indiana Jones. She just needs a hat, she thinks. A hat would make this perfect.

Lady Amazing nods, shivering as Gwen explores the gloriously perfect territory between her ankles to the inside of her knee with a hand still slightly smudged with graphite.

“I’m here because I’m cold,” Gwen says, and Lady Amazing doesn’t laugh or say a heater would probably be easier, because Gwen _has_ heaters, and she has blankets,, but that doesn’t change the fact that she is cold. It’s a color thing, her apartment is rendered all dark, cool blues— though Lady Amazing is all cool colors, pale skin, dark hair, vibrantly chilling eyes, but she is so very, very warm. Gwen will, maybe, paint her in fluorescents and sunsets because there is not a thing pastel about her. She will not paint Lady Amazing as she is, no, Gwen is not overly enamored with the human form, but she’ll find a way to represent Lady Amazing. And, well, right _now_ she is pretty fond of the human form stretching out before her, so who knows? Maybe she’ll re-find the pleasure of atomically curvature for an unnamed painting. Oils, she thinks. She’ll do it in oils.

“Are you cold now?” Lady Amazing asks, sitting up and cupping Gwen’s cheek, eyes far too bright, too close and suddenly Gwen wants to see Lady Amazing in her flat—Gwen’s flat while she paints. She want to see her eating ice cream straight out of the carton dressed only in one of Gwen’s many loose Oxford shirts, watching as Gwen stretches canvas over her hand-made frame, as she finds the perfect pigments for her pallet. It’s a silly notion, so Gwen kisses her to keep from saying anything, smoothing the shirt off her body and stroking the lines of her chest, up the curve of her cloth covered breast, plucking at the strap.

“No,” Gwen eventually says looking back up at Lady, who watches a bit breathlessly as Gwen shucks her own shirt. “I am definitely not cold right now.”

“Good,” Lady Amazing says, sits up, reaches behind Gwen and pulls them under a large woolen blanket before Gwen can catch on, “though I should make sure you don’t catch chill. We will be removing clothing, after all. Wouldn’t do for me to be a poor hostess.”

Gwen laughs, relaxing into the warmth of the moment and happily swarms back to kissing Lady Amazing, because really? It’s the exact thing she wants to do at the moment.


End file.
